After that cry, the chubby Duan De fell into a stupor — as if his very soul had been stolen from him. His Yin-Yang Heavenly Eyes had gone glassy and blank, fixed rigidly on the space above.
One had no choice but to marvel, no choice but to be shaken. In ordinary times, if even a single wisp of primordial chaos-energy fell into one’s hands, it would cause a great sensation — something that could be refined into the supreme treasure of a holy land.
Yet here it existed in tens of thousands of strands, cascading downward like one divine waterfall after another. The mist was vast and boundless, terrifying beyond measure, so overwhelming that it made one’s legs weak with the involuntary urge to kneel.
It was a breathtaking sight — ten thousand waterfalls of chaos-energy, one after another, pouring and hanging down, half-submerging the platform, leaving only a portion visible. The spectacle was incomparably magnificent.
“A divine miracle,” the Old Blind Man murmured.
“The figure — it’s gone. The chaos-energy is impenetrable now…” Duan De stood bereft, his gaze reaching upward.
Ye Fan’s heart was equally shaken. This was a source of primordial chaos. Earlier, when he had activated his Heavenly Eye Passage, he too had glimpsed, in a fleeting trance, a divine figure seated cross-legged upon the platform — yet now it had vanished.
That overwhelming presence, that aura, was enough to make one drop to one’s knees on the spot. Had the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar not steadied them, none of the three could have remained standing.
“I clearly saw it. Why is it gone?” Duan De’s eyes were nearly bulging from his skull, his Yin-Yang Heavenly Eyes pouring out two streams of black-and-white divine radiance, blazing like twin torches.
“I saw it too. There truly was a divine being up there — yet now I cannot describe what he looked like. One gaze that spanned ten thousand years, leaving no imprint in the mind that can be held onto!” The Old Blind Man’s entire body was soaked through with sweat. It was the weight of that pressure — it had shaken him to the core.
Wushi Emperor — the one from legend.
In that fleeting glimpse, they had caught a hazy silhouette — whether it had been his true form or some re-manifestation of history from the Primordial Era, they could not say. The sight had struck all three of them speechless with awe.
In an instant of shifting time, they felt as though they had passed through an entire vast river of ages — rise and fall, immersion and surfacing, a lifetime’s dream compressed into a single moment.
Where the divine being had sat was now empty. That silhouette was gone, leaving them questioning whether any of it had been real at all, or whether they had seen nothing.
And now, the Heavenly Eye Passage was useless. The chaos-energy could not be seen through. Everything at the center of the platform was unknowable — it had become a land of impenetrable mystery.
“Wushi Emperor…” they breathed, as if murmuring in sleep, repeating those words over and over.
“At the end of the immortal path, who stands at the peak? One glimpse of Wushi, and the Dao turns to void.”
This ancient saying had been handed down through all the ages. Now they understood it — felt it in their very bones.
Wushi had overawed the forbidden zones where the most powerful beings dwelled, suppressed all of creation, pacified the darkness and chaos, annihilated the divine spirits from beyond the realm, swept through the six harmonies and eight wastes — unmatched above and below the heavens. Wherever his name was spoken, people thought of supreme dominance, of a transcendence that surpassed all things. Revered across all ages, even divine beings trembled. The two characters of “Wushi” had long since ceased to be merely a name — they now carried an undying power, something close to divinity, close to the absolute.
No one could say how many hundreds of thousands of years had passed. Who could yet touch his legacy? And yet, the three before the platform had seemed to catch a glimpse of his shadow. How could they not be shaken?
The name of Wushi was heavier than mountains, broader than oceans, deeper and wider than the furthest stellar reaches — inspiring reverence in every living being beneath the eternal heavens.
For a long time, they stood without speaking, unable to come back to themselves. Eventually they returned to their senses, exchanged a glance, and silently began to study the platform once more — carefully, thoroughly.
It was immense and towering, like a great mountain, like a great tomb. Its stone face was weathered and mottled, dense with the traces of uncountable years.
In the crevices of the cliff walls, one medicinal herb after another clung stubbornly to life, releasing a fragrance that was soul-piercingly sweet — sinking straight into one’s bones.
Through the veils of chaos-mist, the faint outlines of withered plants were visible on the cliff wall — no one could say how many tens of thousands of years they had been growing there. Each could rightly be called a King of Medicines.
The seeds they had scattered had since taken root and flourished, making this place rich with intoxicating fragrance, like a patch of sacred earth — nearly enough to make one believe one had entered the immortal realm itself.
“There’s a living Medicine King over there!” Duan De at last recovered his wits, and with great excitement pointed ahead — within the chaos-mist, he had spotted a single ancient medicinal herb.
A Medicine King must grow for a minimum of eighty or ninety thousand years before it earns that title. Its medicinal properties are exceptional, capable of the extraordinary feat of bringing one back from the precipice of death.
Back in the days of the Immortal Palace World, a divine being had used five-colored earth-marrow to construct a medicinal field, transforming ordinary ground into sacred soil — and had cultivated only six such plants from it.
Yet here, on the cliff wall foundation of what seemed both an ancient tomb and a ceremonial platform, one had grown of its own accord. The contrast was staggering.
A single Medicine King was a treasure that the whole world competed over — capable of extending life by four hundred years. Its rarity was beyond imagination. More than a dozen of them together could rival a single stalk of Undying Divine Medicine.
“This truly is a forbidden ground of the divine. Beneath Wushi Emperor’s platform — or rather, at the base of his tomb — even something like this can take root. It is simply staggering.” Even the Old Blind Man could not contain his amazement.
Ye Fan stood in quiet contemplation. An ancient emperor was truly beyond all reckoning — even after dissolving into the Dao, such miraculous things could grow from his legacy. It was humbling and astonishing all at once.
“There’s another one!” The chubby Duan De’s sharp eyes pierced through the layered mist and spotted a second plant, slightly higher up on the cliff.
Its bud was crystalline and luminous, trembling with ten-colored light, hazy and fragrant — one look at it and the senses drowned in it. An irresistible urge to reach out and pluck it welled up immediately. One stalk, four hundred years of life — who could resist that temptation?
“O Emperor, in your great magnanimity, please be most gracious and forgive us — allow us to take just one or two. You no longer have use for them, and after all, they grew from your own tomb soil.” Duan De muttered and chanted, bowing again and again, as he made his way forward.
A Medicine King was effectively beyond human cultivation. It required constant irrigation with great earth-milk, the nourishment of dragon energy, and no fewer than eighty or ninety thousand years of growth. Not even an immortal dynasty, which might outlast this span by some degree, could realistically watch over a single plant for nearly a hundred thousand years.
“BOOM!”
Duan De had taken only a single step when he was blasted back. His mouth and nose bled. His whole body spasmed. His bones crackled and popped. It was alarming to witness.
A great Dao aura permeated the air — like an ancient universe in slow rotation, incomprehensibly terrifying, as if warning them: do not cross this boundary by even half a step.
“So close, and yet beyond reach?” Duan De could not hide his frustration.
“We should consider ourselves fortunate,” Ye Fan said. “Otherwise, we would have been reduced to ash long before reaching this point.” By now, the Wushi jade fragments on all their persons were shining, counteracting the Dao aura. Without them, a force of ten thousand times their weight would have come crashing down.
“Indeed. No one can reach this place — only those who carry Wushi Emperor’s jade pieces,” the Old Blind Man agreed with a nod.
“If we use the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar as our shield…” Duan De refused to back down. He implored Ye Fan to push forward, since Ye Fan possessed the Saint’s shell.
A single Medicine King was enough to make even a great accomplished king bend the knee — even ancient Saints had been known to compromise for one. Four hundred years of additional life was a prize of enormous consequence; it could very well alter the entire trajectory of one’s existence.
Ye Fan’s Sacred Physique blazed with golden radiance, his blood surging like a tide. Clasping the Emperor jade fragments, he advanced beneath the shelter of the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar, one step at a time. Duan De and the Old Blind Man remained within the protective light curtain.
“Getting closer — almost there.”
Just at the cliff’s base, within a crack in the stone, an ancient medicine glittered with crystalline brilliance, its petals swaying in five-colored divine light, illuminating that entire spot with a gorgeous radiance. The intoxicating fragrance was so thick it seemed almost solid.
“We’re finally going to have it in hand — it’s the equivalent of an extra life. Selling it might even draw out an Ancestral King or two.” The Old Blind Man rubbed his hands together, his expression bright with anticipation.
“BOOM!”
A curtain of chaos-energy dropped down — like a great white waterfall, vast and blind — crashing onto the light shield. It was as if ten thousand mountains had been stacked on top of them at once, so crushing that even the Saint’s shell nearly buckled.
“Good heavens — a waterfall of chaos-energy! There’s no justice in this world!” Duan De bellowed.
A mortal person would have become ash in an instant. Even a Saint-Master who arrived would be pulverized in the first moment. Only the Saint’s shell was holding them up.
At the same time, they drove the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar. It gave a soft ring, and dark light surged upward in waves, blocking that divine waterfall which could have obliterated a king.
Ye Fan’s Saint’s shell blazed with a flash of golden radiance. He expanded the Golden Sacred Domain, and shielded by the Demonic Jar, pushed to the stone face and wrenched the Medicine King from its crack.
“BOOM!”
The platform gave a violent shudder, as though it might collapse. An even more terrifying Dao aura cascaded downward — like the entire stellar realm collapsing upon them.
They retreated swiftly, pulling back until they were a safe distance from the platform, and only then stopped.
Where they had been, it was now solid white. Ten thousand waterfalls of chaos-energy plunged downward, incomparably vast and magnificent, flooding the space they had just occupied. The sight was staggering.
“That was terrifying. Without the Wushi Emperor jade, without the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar — never mind a divine king, even if a Saint came in person, they would likely be pressed into paste.” The Old Blind Man exhaled.
Ye Fan’s gaze remained fixed on the chaos platform ahead, and he could not help but think of the Ruthless Man Emperor’s sunken coffin — the ancient nest built of black dragon-wood, towering taller than any mountain, also submerged in a sea of chaos, equally mysterious and unfathomable.
“Ha ha — we finally have it!” Duan De laughed, cradling the Medicine King in both hands, his mouth stretched in a grin that threatened to reach his ears.
“Does Wushi Emperor truly sit upon that platform?” the Old Blind Man asked.
“Let’s climb up and look. There are definitely more Medicine Kings up there. Even if we don’t catch that Undying Divine Phoenix Herb that runs on its own, this has already been worth it.” Duan De was eager.
The Old Blind Man shook his head. Ascending the platform was nearly impossible — even with the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar in hand, the odds were not good.
“We must go up,” Ye Fan said, his voice resolute. “The ancient primordial clans have emerged. Only Wushi Emperor can truly overawe them. I have to know whether he is alive or dead — I must find his true self.” Having made up his mind, he reached into his chest and touched the two pieces of old bronze he carried there.
Then he opened a small treasure vase, from which he removed a snow-white crystalline skull — the head of a female Saint — and a crescent moon-shaped jade pendant. He had obtained both of these in the star domain, and both were deeply connected to Wushi Emperor.
“Yes — we must ascend that platform,” Duan De echoed with equal conviction. After a lifetime of tomb-raiding, the burial sites of the ancient emperors had always been his highest aspiration.
Then, without warning, a terrifying aura swept outward, blanketing everything — and involuntarily, all three felt every hair on their bodies, every strand on their heads, rise and stand on end.
A cold, desolate energy — vast as an ocean — as if it had come from the depths of the Nine Underworld Hells, flooding this entire place in a single instant.
A sudden ambush. Blindingly fast. There was no time to react, no chance to mount any effective defense — because it was simply too fast.
From directly behind them, a terrifying figure materialized. Its entire body was pitch-black, withered like dried branches. It had nine heads — the heads of a dragon, a Pixiu, a human, a phoenix, and more, arranged side by side — and surrounding its body was an undying black divine ring.
An endless aura of death shattered the heavens and split the earth. It was like a stellar sea breaking apart and crashing down upon them — the chest tightened, the body threatened to crumble, the flame of the Yuan Soul flickered toward extinction.
This was one of those beings that had crawled out from within a crystal coffin.
In that instant, all three of them arrived at the same conclusion simultaneously. This was one of the Undying Celestial Emperor’s former subordinates — a thought that struck them with awe and dread in equal measure.
Wreathed in the divine ring, it stood in terrible majesty.
Behind it, something like a vast pantheon of palace halls seemed to manifest — pressing down upon all ten directions, obliterating every trace of life within reach, causing every Yuan Soul present to tremble and begin to fragment.
“Splat!”
It all happened too fast. There was no time to react. The pitch-black, withered entity with its nine heads — dragon, Pixiu, human, phoenix, and the rest arrayed side by side — shot out a hand and drove it straight through the Old Blind Man’s chest, tearing away half of Duan De’s arm in the same motion, and seized the Medicine King.
Ye Fan’s golden pupils erupted with blinding beams of light. His fist launched forward, and he surged ahead to battle this terrifying existence wreathed in the black divine ring.
“We actually end up facing a subordinate of the Undying Celestial Emperor — have we stepped into the age of myth?!” The Old Blind Man and Duan De collapsed into pools of blood, driving the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Jar at any cost they had to bear.